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Steel Beasts: Content Wish List


Azure Lion

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Again, wish list.  This is in direct response to the devs asking about game complexity.  And another player mentioning the same potential solution.  If the game wants to stay exactly as it is, that's the dev's choice.  They know their business better than I do by far.  But if you don't like the "wishes", ask the devs not to solicit feedback.  And to be repetitive, don't use the new feature.  Just like Overhead view, I use it all the time.  But not everyone has to.

 

And you can't tell me that something as simple as expanding the in-game log and letting me click on the message suddenly harms the game as a simulation.  If you want to make this true hardcore a simulation, ban all jumping around to units completely start enforcing random radio failures.

Edited by thewood
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Yes, this is a wish list. I was reacting to multiple mentions of 'war games' and you did make a comparison between Steel Beast and a war game. If your intention is not to make Steel Beast more 'war game like', then I apologize.

 

Forgive me if I am wrong here, but I believe that sophisticated combat information systems have not been widely implemented at the platoon level. I too like to consult the map, but I am sure in practice it is hard to pay close attention to your immediate vicinity and study the map at the same time. I look at switching to the map as suddenly being in the company command vehicle, not out as a vehicle or platoon commander or other soldier. And I think a case for a combat information system in command vehicles is strong.

 

As for using a second screen, I don't support that for looking at the map while your not acting as the company commander (or higher), intelligence or operations etc. What I would like to see on my second screen is a dialog of messages etc which includes, easy ways to get more information etc, but not anything that should not be immediately available to the unit I am directly using.

 

Just my thoughts

 

 

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And that's a distinction, as I have explicitly called out, between a wargame and a procedural simulation.  I'm not arguing for some group of features that will somehow transform SB into a game that it isn't.  But when asked what makes it difficult to play SB, whether as a wargame or as a single large unit commander in SP, its managing large numbers of friendly units.

 

And I'm not alone in that.  In the thread about complexity and in this thread, more than just a few players have mentioned this feature.  Some of them playing in-vehicle.  Whether as a wargame feature or a simulation feature, its a potentially key feature to remove some complexity and improve the a player's quality of game life.

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I believe that Steel Beast simulates real world procedures and is marketed as such to the major customers, ie a simulator for military forces. Anything that does not in some way reflect the real world pulls the simulation away from it's major customers and that is quite a balancing act. I don't believe it is intended to be used as a war game, but as a simulator, so asking for features that make it easier to use as a war game misses the point. But that's for Ssnake to decide.

 

I give much more weight to the opinions and observations of service men and ex service men; I am an ex service man, myself, but have no direct experience in armour. And more weight to those who are actively using Steel Beasts in their service life. If one of these people say it is not practical in the field to do so and so, or so and so is simply not done in reality; then I listen!

 

I myself use Steel Beasts as a 'what if' simulator. I enjoy solving small problems and from time to time just sit back and watching the results.

38 minutes ago, thewood said:

a player's quality of game life

So my impression that you are more interested in gaming than simulation, is not correct.

 

40 minutes ago, thewood said:

So you never change vehicles in SP?  Just curious.

I did not mean to infer that.

 

Yes, I jump around enough to try and achieve my objective, but I try to do that in a more or less realistic way, changing 'command hats' and but only one at a time.

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I would consider that incredibly unrealistic to be jumping around between vehicles, vs. maybe commanding from a map.  So you aren't really playing a simulation.

 

You seem pretty hardcore about sticking to the procedural simulation aspect.  Just wondering how often real tankers jump from one vehicle to another.  Or is it that everyone has their own threshold of realism?

 

All I am asking for is the ability to do exactly what you just said you do.  Be able to jump from one vehicle to another.  Just not do it with a hot key or by the map.  

 

I'm wondering if you use real tankers as your benchmark for realism, I'd like to hear how realistic it is to jump from vehicle to vehicle.  It must be some relatively new technology.

Edited by thewood
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7 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

So something other than the current Shift+F10, Alt+F10 and the other option (which I can't recall off hand) that takes you to the unit in contact (i.e. the one that generated the last text message)??

Yeah, the existing functionality is good, but im thinking about MP scenarios where there are many friendly units on the field, and you want to go directly to a unit under your command (whether theyre under fire or not) without having to potentially have to scroll through every friendly unit until you land on the one you want. The Map View allows you to do this of course, but not if Map View is disabled. So im thinking about a way to 'bridge the gap' between the player and his units, without dependancy on the Map, or jumping from unit to unit all over the place in search of your other squad/tank. I dont see how clicking unit icons on a panel in the 3d view is any more or less "realistic" than clicking unit icins on a map

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2 hours ago, thewood said:

I would consider that incredibly unrealistic to be jumping around between vehicles, vs. maybe commanding from a map.  So you aren't really playing a simulation.

 

You seem pretty hardcore about sticking to the procedural simulation aspect.  Just wondering how often real tankers jump from one vehicle to another.  Or is it that everyone has their own threshold of realism?

 

All I am asking for is the ability to do exactly what you just said you do.  Be able to jump from one vehicle to another.  Just not do it with a hot key or by the map.  

 

I'm wondering if you use real tankers as your benchmark for realism, I'd like to hear how realistic it is to jump from vehicle to vehicle.  It must be some relatively new technology.

I think the key issue here is who are you trying to be?

 

1. If you are trying to be a crew commander of a vehicle, then by all means have a smaller number of units (say the four or so vehicles in your Troop / Platoon) and limit yourself to "jumping" between F8, F7, F6 and F9.

 

Take your feeds from the scrolling text just like listening to the radio and use the map for BMS.

 

No map, OK BMS is down (no maps) so listen harder to the radio, print the map off before hand and draw stuff.

 

At Troop / Platoon level, your "BMS" can be pretty sophisticated, but your "Area of Interest" dare I say will be limited to those neighbouring vehicles within your call sign (the Troop / Platoon).

 

Spend roughly 70% of your time in the 3D world (ideally F7 / F8) and 20% of the time in the Map view (F5) [averaged across the duration of the mission].

 

I acknowledge that most players wont limit themselves to this role only.

 

2. If you are trying to be a Troop / Platoon commander then by all means have a smaller number of units (say the four or so vehicles in your Troop / Platoon) and limit yourself to the those in terms of "jumping".

 

Take your feeds from the scrolling text just like listening to the radio.

 

At Troop / Platoon level, your "BMS" can be pretty sophisticated, but your "Area of Interest" dare I say will be limited to those neighbouring call signs in your Squadron, Combat Team, Company Team, etc.

 

Spend roughly 70% of your time in the 3D world (ideally F7 / F8) and 20% of the time in the Map view (F5) [averaged across the duration of the mission].

 

3. If you want to be a Squadron, Combat Team, Company Team, etc. commander then your focus shifts to manoeuvring Troops / Platoons rather than vehicles so spend maybe 50% of your time in the 3D world (ideally F7 / F8) and 50% of the time in the Map view (F5) [averaged across the duration of the mission] since you still need to command your vehicle but hopefully you aren't "in" the fight.

 

4. If you want to be a Battlegroup. Task Force commander, then your focus shifts to manoeuvring Squadrons, Combat Teams, Company Teams, etc. rather than Troops / Platoons rather so spend maybe 80% of your time in the 3D world (ideally F7 / F8) and 20% of the time in the Map view (F5) [averaged across the duration of the mission] since you still need to command your vehicle and you certainly shouldn't be "in" the fight.

 

For training people are given roles within multi player and they automatically adjust. E.g. the Troop Leader of 11 stays with 11 on say the left flank. They don't suddenly start looking at say "42" on the right flank, because they already have their hands full.

 

For some players they apparently want to move up and down that scale "flitting" (not meant to be dismissive, more to reflect the random nature of "what's going on over here ...") from role to role (1 through 4). E.g. the person controlling all of Blue suddenly decides to spend 80% of their time in F6 "blowing sh*t up" but also wants to jump to random other locations as desired.

 

If that's what you want to do then I understand the limitations.

 

However I'm not sure if its the Sim's role to be "all things to all players" or if players should pick a level (or say 1 or 2 levels) and stick to them.

 

Certainly we have no need for the "wished" functionality in our training.

 

Edited by Gibsonm
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2 hours ago, Bond_Villian said:

Yeah, the existing functionality is good, but im thinking about MP scenarios where there are many friendly units on the field, and you want to go directly to a unit under your command (whether theyre under fire or not) without having to potentially have to scroll through every friendly unit until you land on the one you want. The Map View allows you to do this of course, but not if Map View is disabled. So im thinking about a way to 'bridge the gap' between the player and his units, without dependancy on the Map, or jumping from unit to unit all over the place in search of your other squad/tank. I dont see how clicking unit icons on a panel in the 3d view is any more or less "realistic" than clicking unit icins on a map

 

Well if map view is disabled - print the map off and battle track.

 

Even with a BMS of some sort all vehicle commanders (regardless of nationality) will still carry a map covered in plastic and have a supply of map marking pens in their tank suit, to draw on the map (or on the turret for that matter).

 

I guess I'm finding it hard to follow the idea of "lets make it harder by turning the map off", but still have some sort of built in functionality that offsets the act of turning the map off?

 

Either leave the map available and escalate difficulty via enabling / disabling updates to that map.

 

Or turn the map off (if that's what you want) and make the player work through that friction by reverting to their core / first principles skills.

 

Edited by Gibsonm
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The interests even between military customers aren't 100% identical. For some training cases a clickable log window (or an OOB tree, for that matter) could be desirable. In other cases it's not. So, if implemented, it would be set as an option in the mission editor since here's where you compose your training content, and tailor it specifically to the needs of the lesson, or the exercise.

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23 hours ago, thewood said:

The Piranha IIIH, which led to the LAV III, which led to the Stryker only seats 8 in game, while the Stryker seats 9 or 10 in the world.  The H also, for some reason, doesn't allow an RWS in SB.  While you can use the C, I am assuming real-world differences between between the C and the H are reflected in SB.  Namely mobility and some limited armor upgrades.   

 

I might have confused my self with this one.

I think you may be mistaken on the LAV family. The first Mowag ( which I operated) was the 2/3 wheel version in N America, then the LAV, then the Striker (which is really a LAV )  were built here in Canada .

 

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/Switzerland/Mowag_Piranha.php...........shows the history

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22 hours ago, thewood said:

There was the whole LAV series prior to the LAV III.  But the current LAV III design was based on the Piranha IIIH.  The Stryker was based on the LAV III hull.  Hence the IIIH connection.  

1972- MOWAG Piranha 1 4x4 APC

1972- MOWAG Piranha 1 6x6 AVGP Cougar, Grizzly & Husky

1972- MOWAG Piranha  1 8x8 LAV-25 (production 1990)

-------------------------------------------------------

1980 - MOWAG Piranha 2

1990- MOWAG Piranha 2 8x8 Bision

1996- MOWAG Piranha 2 Coyote armored reconnaissance variant Canadian Light Armor Vehicle (LAV) Series

----------------------------------------------------------

1996 MOWAG Piranha 3 base model  not fielded

1996 MOWAG Piranha 3 MK3 LAVIII CDN 

2001 MOWAG Piranha 3H CRV  Cav Recon Veh (Ireland) 

2001 MOWAG Piranha 3H APC Denmark/Ireland

2002 MOWAG Piranha 3C Striker variants ( 2002 = Flat Bottom Hull  Variants)

2003 MOWAG Piranha 3C NZLAV

2008 MOWAG Piranha 3C 8x8 DF30 / DF 90

2008 MOWAG Piranha 3H MRV Mediun Recon Veh

2011 MOWAG Piranha 3C Striker Double-V Hull (DVH) Variants )

2016 MOWAG Piranha LAVIII 6.0 CDN Upgrade  CDN

2017 MOWAG Piranha LAVIII 700 Saudi Arabia

 

 

The C model is the platform used for the latest Veh's due to its longer hull, H was used at first, then dropped for a larger capacity hence the CDN LAV III, NZLAV, and Striker Veh's. 6.0 and 700's have a larger hull, greater capacity.

 

Edited by 12Alfa
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OK, I thought the H was used for initial LAV III and Stryker platform base.  btw, where did you find that source that makes the detailed distinction? I have been trying to track one down and the only design timeline I could find was in an osprey book.  And that made no distinction between the C and the H.

 

Part of the confusion comes from these two sites stating that the C didn't enter production until 2006 and the H was the original basis for the LAV III and then the Stryker. http://www.military-today.com/apc/stryker.htm  Which might align with what your saying if they redesigned the LAV III and Piranha IIIH for the Stryker and then marketed the redesign as the IIIC.

 

http://www.military-today.com/apc/mowag_piranha_IIIc.htm

https://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=1104

http://www.military-today.com/apc/stryker.htm

 

Just checking length and weights on a few sites and the IIIH is the same as the stryker at like 6.8M.  The IIIC is around 7.25M.  I also noted that the IIIH seems to weigh around the same as the Stryker, which is less than the IIIC.  Also noted that the original LAV III was that same 6.8-6.9M length.  Again leading to the confusion that the IIIC is a heavier and longer vehicle than the LAV III, Stryker, and Piranha IIIH.  Of course weapon stations and era/slat armor screw up weight comparisons on "as fielded" configurations.

Edited by thewood
Expounding a little
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Mowag , GDL (Canada) sites mostly,  for timelines.

https://www.mil.be/nl/materiaal/piranha-df90

http://www.military-today.com/artillery/piranha_IIIc_df90.htm

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com

http://www.warwheels.net

 

AS for length, its a free for all, some count storage boxes, some don't. Best go with hull length in its bare state. I have no illusion on they having conflicting data to be clear.  As a operator/ trainer of the series II and II , I can only go on by what data I was provided on course, and through personal research into this AFV's history.

 

 

LAV 6.0 length-7.62

LAV 700-8.2

Each child is getting bigger it seems, note the Saudis have the 700

Edited by 12Alfa
added links, incerted -having- my bad
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I can't see where any of the links you provided talk about the connection between the Piranha IIIC or H to LAV III or Stryker, other than the last link you listed states the LAV-III is based on the Piranha IIIH, which makes my point.  We aren't discussing DF30 or 90, I think.  My wish was for either a specific Stryker variant or a Piranha IIIH with some upgrades to make it equivalent (with less squinting) to the Stryker.   Nothing I have seen from anyone says anything about the Piranha IIIC being in the variant chain that leads to the Stryker.  I have four links and a couple books that state explicitly that the variant chain is from the H to the Stryker, through the LAV III.  I am not talking about the DF30, DF80, Piranha II, NZLAV, ASLAV, LAV-25, etc. 

 

I have noticed that every vehicle supposedly based on the H is just under 7M in length.  Every vehicle based on the C is 7.5m or greater.   Even without explicitly stating the H is a base platform, approximate hull length draws a pretty good correlation between H-based and C-based 

 

So my conclusion boils down to how we started this discussion.  The LAV-III and Stryker are built on the Piranha IIIH platform.  Even the LAV-III 600 is built on reworked IIIH platforms that started out as LAV-IIIs.  No one has presented any thing to refute that or the now four links that possibly validate that.  I can double check Jane's 2005 and 2010, but don't really want to.

 

Of course. the mitigating question is; does the game really expose the differences between the C and H?  I know the dismounts are 20% greater in the C.  But other than that, does the C have slightly greater armor, speed, or acceleration?  I assume if the devs went to the trouble of explicitly putting both models in, that there is a game worthy difference.

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I was once given some good advice on my analyst course, To see, one has to look.

 

As for the mitigating question ........test and report back here on your finding in regards to Armour,speed,acceleration so others can learn.

 

Again, AFV data is never back and white (think opsec), LAV's info is no different.

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On 9/27/2019 at 2:49 PM, 12Alfa said:

I think you may be mistaken on the LAV family. The first Mowag ( which I operated) was the 2/3 wheel version in N America, then the LAV, then the Striker (which is really a LAV )  were built here in Canada .

 

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/Switzerland/Mowag_Piranha.php...........shows the history

I am pointing out I was not mistaken.  None of the links you provided show my original supposition as wrong.  Please show explicitly now, where there is any ambiguity between pedigree of LAV III or the Stryker in regards to the H.  You keep posting links that have no bearing on the original wish I had.  Please tell me you haven't just wasted my time by not reading what I wrote originally...

 

"The Piranha IIIH, which led to the LAV III, which led to the Stryker only seats 8 in game, while the Stryker seats 9 or 10 in the world.  The H also, for some reason, doesn't allow an RWS in SB.  While you can use the C, I am assuming real-world differences between between the C and the H are reflected in SB.  Namely mobility and some limited armor upgrades. "

 

I feel like this is where we started and this is where my previous post ended.  

 

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I am using the term "LAVIII" for a production AFV, the Canadian Light Armoured Vehicle program_ 1996 MOWAG Piranha 3 MK3 LAVIII CDN  _.

 ( prime area to cause confusion)

 

I merely posted the time line (best est).

Which gives the estimated contract production time frame.

 

You may deduct your own interpretation at will , if Strikers (a family of veh's ) fit the time line to make you happy,  if so I'm happy, if it does not, I'm still happy.

 

However...

Comparing RL production contracts   vs      SB  AFV's  ie " "The Piranha IIIH, which led to the LAV III, which led to the Stryker only seats 8 in game, while the Stryker seats 9 or 10 in the world "...is problematic

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by 12Alfa
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52 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

gif_fps.jpg?w=1000&ssl=1

 

The new 4.1 terrain enhancements just make me want it more.

 

The gif is from a RTS/TPS/FPS hybrid called Call to Arms. The first person models are primitive (a weapon sight layer) but supplement the game nicely and allow players the option to fight from first person. This would be wonderful in SB.

Could I agree more? Probably not.

Heck...even a simple crosshair to shoot rifle and AT weapon would be a huge improvement.

As long as the damn things shoots the moment I pull the trigger and in the direction I want it to.

Edited by Grenny
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